The Sorrows of Your Changing Face
by perverse-idyll
Summary: What if the Doctor took the time to seek out Clara and say goodbye?


A/N: I'm fond of this fragment, but since I don't really have time to write for this fandom, it will never become a full-blown story. I'm posting it here in tribute to my undying affection for these characters and appreciation for the way they broke my heart.

xxxxx

"We've really got to stop saying goodbye like this. How many times has it been now?"

She aims for a tone of flippant affection, the nostalgic companionship of Coal Hill and three-week-old coffee runs, heartsore mornings on an alien beach watching Gallifreyan symbols being scratched in the sand, a blanket over her bare shoulders and the transcendently erotic flapper affair that glittered as she curled around his confession, being counselled to choose and so choosing to change her mind. You can't be heartless and do what he does. Did. Always that moment of weakness when she sees what she can't give up in him, always the space-twisting, time-stopping brightness of his smile when she throws scruples to the wind, the ancient being behind his eyes wholly joyous for a moment, grateful, a brief star lighting up the darkest corners of the universe, the corners she now occupies in his memory, having lied to his face one too many times.

Seeing him again is the obvious worst choice, the one even she can't excuse. Except for this. Except for saying goodbye. She never would have chosen to be here. She's so tired of doing this, of letting go of him_ again_, of being responsible for all of time and all of space. But when he appeared outside her TARDIS – well, she's been lying to herself all along, what else is new? There was never a moment when she _wasn't_ going to open that door. For so long, she's been running the way he did, still does – she's taken lessons from the best – because it's the only way to justify their sacrifice.

And she's seen wonders. She understands better now what it's like to be him.

But she can stop. If he has to, so can she. This Doctor with his rough syllables and unruly hair and sardonic mouth, his eyes wide with unquenchable curiosity, a piercing blue that has watched worlds form in fire and die in flame. He's the truly impossible one. She is merely an echo.

"Clara," he says, glowing, and she knows what that means, too. He's holding it at bay, and she marvels at the strength he draws from sheer stubbornness, even while she devours the sight of him like some monster with inflatable eyes. The Doctor. _Her _Doctor. She counts on him not knowing what she means by staring like this, and she's made frantic by something so gentle and painful in his face, whole worlds she never got to share that have worn him down and ripped his jacket and let loose his ridiculous, windblown curls, and oh his hand, his elegant fingers, Clara's seen civilisations fall to dust and yet she can't stand to see him hurt.

"Clara," he says again, with a smile so purely warm, so full of wonder, it gives her a pang to think what else he might have been hiding all these years. "I remember," the words so much softer than they ought to be. No scoffing or sarcasm, no flinging his hands around, no wild flight into the stars. This is what dying looks like when you're the Doctor, ragged and beautiful and (when did this happen?) without hope. Her silver-haired stick insect, who comes to her rather than go home to die.

She should say something to keep the moment within bounds, but she's so out of practise, centuries out of touch with her Blackpool roots, that she bursts out, without cleverness, "You should have come sooner," as if their separation was a whim, not a sacrifice.

"Oh, you know me. Can't resist a good distraction," he says, suddenly haunted, unhappy, although he doesn't stop smiling. "But it's all right now. All over, you see? The pair of us, we pose no threat to the universe."

The fire that waits to consume and renew him flickers and drifts from collar and cuffs, but he keeps it to a smoulder and seems in no hurry to move on. Deep-set with sadness, his eyes are clearer and more forthcoming than she's ever seen them – although how long has it been? Who knows how accurate her own memories are?

She steps forward and takes his hand with all the care in the world. "Daft old man."

He looks gently pleased again, although she's disappointed to find she no longer has the power to banish his shadows. "You know why I've come," he says approvingly, his voice like a kiss against her brow.

And that's when Clara realises she's been carrying around one last lie, one last impossible self-deception. Because until this moment she'd believed, deep down, that the day would come when they'd travel together again, run from and run toward, careening through time and space, ricocheting around the universe. It will never happen now, and if Time Lord technology hadn't already stopped her heart, this knowledge would ensure it ceased to beat.

"Must I go on, Clara?" says the Doctor, very low, as if ashamed to ask.

Her gaze flies up, startled. "You know the answer to that. I'm sorry, but please don't expect me to imagine the universe without you." When he looks away, she touches his cheek and guides him toward her again. "You'll be glad of it later, Doctor. Trust me."

She's shivering, even though they're standing on a sunny towpath with bright flowers bending in a summer breeze. Clara thinks of all the time she wasted, how she teased him for being old, how often she laid her palm against his cheek and left it at that, when all she can articulate now is _beautiful_. He's beautiful, her frayed, exhausted Doctor, but there's no point in saying it. That's not what matters now. This is the last time she'll stand in the presence of _this_ Doctor, and it really is their last hurrah.

She goes into his arms without a second thought, the regeneration energy pulsing like heaven against her skin. He holds her close without a word, and Clara knows how cold she must feel to him. She whispers into his dusty lapel, "D'you think it would be possible to regenerate together? You know, literally _be_ the Hybrid, the two of us in one body? After all this time, I don't think it matters. Shall we give it a go?" He remains silent, and she tastes shame in the back of her throat. Her voice sharpens. "Doctor, who would it hurt?"

He nuzzles her hair. Or perhaps he's just pressing as close as he dares to the waves of loss cresting inside her, the disintegrating nebulas of _please, please_. "There are rules," he reminds her, guttural but kind. "No, Clara. Don't," and for a moment the sublime, annihilating cloud embraces them both with blinding gold before he gets it back under control. "Please don't. I'm more susceptible than I should be to the ravings of lunatic pudding-brains right now."

She chokes on her refusal, and when a slight, suppressed trembling passes through him, she thinks wildly of stars falling to dust. She's holding a universe of grief in her arms. He's the only person who can help her with it and the only one who mustn't.

He lets go at last and too soon and steps back. "I can't stay."

Hurt, she searches for a way to change his mind, but then scrambles her wits together. When the only choices you have are bad ones, it still feels like having no choice at all. "Right. Forgot. I can't be the first face your face sees."

He smiles a little, his hair fluttering rakishly, his eyes so full of longing that Clara has to squeeze her hands together to stop herself from making foolish declarations.

He doesn't kiss her, or she him. They never do, save for hand or cheek. Through all of time, they never will. Instead, the Doctor turns and wanders away up the path, lingering over memories of his journey here, and Clara finally believes he's at the end of his strength when he sways, and the TARDIS keeps him from falling. He straightens up in the doorway and looks at her as he has in the past, time after time, but just as he has every one of those times, he presses his lips together in a not-quite-smile (_immortality is everybody else dying_) and shuts the door behind him.

The TARDIS groans, fluctuates in and out of existence, and takes him wherever he needs to be.

"My Doctor," Clara says, now that he's too far off to hear.

Absently, she touches her nonexistent pulse, draws a breath she hasn't needed for eons, and heads for her own TARDIS and the unsentimental concern of Lady Me. It's time – that word again, always that word – to pull up the coordinates to a planet she's eluded for centuries. She's curious to know how it will feel when Gallifrey finally unfreezes her heart. To be just another star in the darkness, falling to dust.


End file.
